I think the trick is to have a strong distinctive common purpose/goal first. For FFVI, is to defeat the Empire in the 1st half of the game and later Kefka in the second half. Secondly, everyone revolved strongly around that with a decent (in terms of quantity and quality) back/side story in between. This is a somewhat decentralised approach.
Some of the FFs like FFVII did commit screentime for character backstories and such but they uses a centralized approach which things still lean towards Cloud because having a strong focus point is easier to win audiences compared to the FFVI approach.
Using the MCU as an example, would the heroes in the avengers be so distinctive without their solo movies (Black Widow and Hawkeye are no count.
)?
PS: AM I ONE OF THE CHOSEN SIX?